Ethnography in Social Networking

For Mine and Georges Ethnography project we conducted an experiment where we first decided to produce a survey where we would be asking each other questions about social networking. After trying this we though that we should step it up a notch and actually try something different.

So George decided to come over to my house for the day and told my to confiscate my phone and laptop, In this way i would have no chance accessing my social networking sites.

The purpose of this experiment was to see how i would cope without using my phone or laptop for the whole day. On the other hand we had my mum to use my accounts and to try out for every 10 minutes within each our to use the social networking sites.

My experience within this project was that i felt like a piece of me was missing, i felt like time because normally i would be on my phone passing time on Facebook or Instagram. i felt very unsettled and that for me to pass time i ended up tidying up my room and staring at the fish tank for the majority of the day. There were times were i reached into my pocket for my phone to have found it was not there. it was painful but i then realised how we take it all for granted and how we rely on social network just so that our day passes by.    

My mums experience from using my social networking site was that at first she found that she had to get use to it, as she is not use to how to operate or navigate through it my mum ended up liking things i wouldn't generally like on Facebook, for example how to make cakes, being a student i generally wound't want to make a cake and definitely not have it broadcasted on Facebook for all to see. My mum also found that she had "random" people messaging her and had no idea what the slag meant.

To conclude i felt that i needed to get by from using my phone and just to pass time, i don't feel like i'm an addict but maybe i need to chill out a bit from using my phone or laptop and maybe help out a lot more around the house.

My mums conclusion was that she found it rather interesting and a good way to catch up with old friends. She found new ways to communicate e.g Facebook message and found so many pages that could help her with her day to day activities. She now knows why the modern teen uses social networking to communicate to one and other, but she also said that if she had time she would use it more. If she wants to get in touch with someone she would do it by me as i know what i am doing...apparently.

Who's watching us?

Looking at case studies a am going to be talking about surveillance within Britain and whether as a whole it is a good thing or a bad thing. First looking at, What is Surveillance? Well my friend Surveillance is a way of watching people and getting away with it. Having cameras set up up in every direction it may sometimes feel like you are being violated just by having a camera in front of you.

Many argue that having surveillance is a good thing and can help keep the city safe. I agree with this but also feel like its wrong. I can give a personal experience that i have encountered within surveillance.

I was coming back from my breakdancing class, (yes i breakdance) around 6.00pm. As i was walking to the bus stop with my cousin we where approached by a pair of youths. At first they wanted some many, some me and my cousin simply said no sorry we don't. I don't think they liked that answer so they then started to follow us asking if we had weed on us, i have no idea why it seemed that we had weed on us as me and my cousin have never touched the thing. Again answering no they then started to chase us. We got beat up for no reason. Me and my cousin ran when the opportunity to flee came, so we did. A couple of days later we had reported it to the police. There answer was that they would check the CCTV footage around that area where it happened. After waiting 3 agonising weeks to get justice, we had no result as the excuse was that there were to many people and that it wasn't working around that time.

This personally made me mad, i was asking to myself, why do we have CCTV if there is no organisation or if it doesn't even work. We didn't have a leg to stand on because the two muggers could have been anyone, and to be honest when you are scared of someone you don't really take a minute to have a look at them because you are getting punched in the face. Anyway as i now finish my rant, i feel that having CCTV cameras are in a way pointless.

Advantages:

Let people know that they are being watched to prevent crime.
Help monitor certain areas of violence, graffiti and so on.
Makes it a safer place for pedestrians to go where they want without having to worry.

Disadvantages:
Sometimes they can be used to spy on people.
Makes them feel like they are being watched constantly.
Who knows who's watching on the other side.
Invading personal space.

Even though i strongly feel against CCTV, looking at case studies i have found that CCTV helps reduce the number of crime within each area, monitoring everyones moves. In the past there has been numerous cases where if an incident has happened, Surveillance came along to solve the mystery. This also enables CCTV images to be used within the media industry to create a greater emotional impact towards it's readers. In some sense when a crime is made and has been cracked, CCTV come and takes the title rather than looking at the case itself and within its own transcripts.

Surveillance has been portrayed within an ill manner towards the public audience. Yes it may be preventing crime but it also invades peoples private space. CCTV is now almost everywhere, for example Shopping Malls, Library's and so on, in some sense this is just a way for the government to say that yes they are fighting combat when really they are taking a back seat and watching everyone within there day to day routine.

The main question that we can all be asking our selves is that, can this continue and if so will it get worse as technology is increasing so are they ways around crime. Can we all cope with being watched. If i want to sit down and eat my Mc chicken burger would i need to worry about some random guy watching me eat, A pervert may be on the other side watching people. So you don't know whether to trust the police system because even the police have there odd characters.

Sources:
http://www.no-cctv.org.uk/faq.asp
http://whatiscctv.com/
http://content.met.police.uk/Article/CCTV/1400011385250/1400011385250

File Sharing

Torrenting

Looking at file sharing (peer to peer) P2P this has the same principle towards the copy Right Law. As much as we know it is Illegal to download and is thrown upon, yet we all still do it in some shape or form. A good example that i can give is, say like i saw a picture and i took a picture of that picture, that would still fall under the Copy Right Law, yet the quality and detail may not be the same. Pixelating    the image. In some sense that might then make it my own image as it may alter towards the original.

The question is, where do we draw the line?

So many torrenting sites are being taken off by the government and yet there is still away to access it. Im not saying i know how, but there are ways around this. A good example i can give is Pirate Bay.
As they were originally based in the USA, the whole site was shut down. This was no stopping them. What they did instead was to move to a country that didn't really care about the Copy Right Law and then branch out from there.

There is only a numerous ways around this that can stop people accessing these sites yet there is always a way around things. This is where i say again, where do we draw the line?

How is it not morally wrong?

I believe that file sharing is not wrong as it may help spread and help acknowledge the artists work towards the audience. This may help expanding there profits rather than making it less.

Even though Torrernting sites such as Pirate bay or Kickass torrents are not funded by the government, the profit to hold each of the torrenting sites up all come from shares and advertisements as well as its customers.

Many of my friends torrent and and go against the copy right law, I found that when you go to a party or a club even the DJ sometimes has music that he hasn't paid for and had illegally downloaded from torrent sites. Everyone does it now a days and its something that is becoming of a trend.

I don't think it hurts anyone as it has its negative and its positive side.

Sources:
https://www.staffs.ac.uk/legal/copyright/what_is_copyright/
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_Beyonce_get_paid_for_a_concert?#slide=2
http://www.p2pfinanceassociation.org.uk/
http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/peersharing/a/torrenthandbook.htm

Debate

Copy Right

First of all, What is Copy Right?

Copy Right protects ideas and concepts made by an indervidual. When a song, film or any sort of median is made it instantly has Copyright protection over the material. This keeps it protected from other people from using it for there own advantage or claiming it as theres. Copy Right is generally owned by the creator and if anyone wanted to use there material, they would need to notify them and request that if they can use it in a certain manner. If the composer agrees to it, then by all means he or she is able to use it. Using it without the permission of the artist may result into a really heavy fine for the person that has used it and is considered to be an act of crime.

For our debate we were split into teams that were for and against the copy right law and file sharing. We were split into fair teams and had to research good and valid arguments, in this way were had the opportunity to counter react towards our opposing team. We found that we were strongly against the Copyright Law and that file sharing should happen.

One of our main arguments towards why we should file share is that sharing a file towards another person should not be classed as not being something against copy right. The main reason for this is for example, if my neighbour had a brand new car that i wanted so badly, if i touched it, magically it would appear onto my drive. it is different from stealing as my neighbours car is also on his drive. This is the same principle for file sharing. It does not affect the artist or who ever owns it because in a way it helps spread the artists work. A good example that we used within the debate is how artists are able to upload files onto Sound cloud. This helps the audience try out the new and different music without them paying for it. If he or she likes the song or album they then have the opportunity to download the song or album for free. This is a clever idea as it helps share the artists work around making them recognised by others.

Once the artist has established himself he can then start charging for his music. On the other hand the profit that artists receive is not always from selling his or hers album. A good example that my friend George gave was that, Beyonce had such an amazing live concert that she made over $1.5 USD just from making a three song set from her live tour. This shows that profit can come from tours as well as merchandise.

Our opposing team argued that there should be a Copyright Law as it affects the artist. An example towards what they gave is if i made a story that was personal to myself and someone came along and copied word from word making it their own. How would we feel? In the same sense towards how the artist feels.

Our counter argument against this was not everyone can copy and make it there own. Our reason for this is that there are such things as remixing. This is where an indervidual has an artists song and adds more beats or changes the way it sounds, this then makes it there own as they have made it to how they wanted it. Sometimes it may not sound as good making the original sound better, this is a good advantage for the artist because the artists them selves is more unique and has there own set of skills.

Campaign Video

Campaign Video

The next task we were appointed was to create a Campaign video of our own choice. The video needed to consist of a length of 5-10 minutes long. Me and George decided to create a video based on something me and him do a lot which is leaving assignments last minute. We chose this topic because we felt like we could relate rather well to it.

We shot the video in Georges flat, the whole process took around 4-5 hours as well as editing which took 2 hours to finish. We found that shooting in the dark was tricky as you are limited with what you can see and do. A way we went around this was to shine a torch in the specific areas that we needed, this acted out as the light from the laptop and found that this technique worked rather well.

The concept of the video was to show two scenarios.  One was to show how how leaving an assignment last minute may create further obstacles and how everything becomes one big panic. The second half shows an alternative and how doing an assignment way before the deadline can help, causing less stress for the indervidual.

Pecha Kucha Presentation

Pecha Kucha Presentation

For the second task we had to create a Pecha Kucha presentation, this is were we have to talk about a chosen topic and to be synchronised with the timings of the slides, for example our slides were set to around 20 seconds each, our task was to create a presentation around social networking/ Folksonomy. We looked at how Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can be used and how the different techniques e.g hashtags and so on can bring people closer or gets the attention of others.

We also looked at how Facebook can keep a diary of an indervidual, for example i could have  an embarrassing status or picture taken in 2012 and a friend is then able to access this status for that related time. Yes of course it is embarrassing but a good way for people to find out more about an indervidual.

Another example is on Instagram, if i created a took a picture that i felt was of good standard, i could upload it to Instagram, using filters i can slightly adjust the image for example if i want to over expose the image i can. Once i have chosen my filter i am then able to add a description that relates towards the image. The final step is hash tagging. Hash tagging links your image with related images around the world. This can help broadcast your image and can be seen by many. A lot of photographers use this app to present there work world wide.

Our aim was to create a presentation with as little words on it so we as the speakers, need to memorise a script and talk about each slide making sure that each slide is on point and that the whole presentation ran within 10 minutes. 

I chose to work with my friend George Bushell as we both work well together and that we both found that after presenting the presentation we found that we were both confident and felt strong about the ideas that we put across towards the class.

Assignment 3

Introduction

As i have moved on with my future it has now come to the point where i am now at university studying Media and Communications. With one of our modules we have a subject called networking in Media. This is a really interesting subject, which contains a range of subjects within the module.

For our Assignment 3 we have been asked to produce all the projects that we have made and present them via a blog....this blog.

The first task is to create a Psychogeography project, this is when a normal journey taken by an individual is made but has a slight twist, a twist that may help he or she to take more notice of there surroundings or the journey that they have made. My idea is to create a journey but using a slight twist using crutches. I will be working with my close mate George Bushell and together we will see and experience the altered journey via crutches.

psychogeography project for DMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zotKJofDteQ

For this project we decided to see what it would be like for an individual who has a disability or someone who has broken there legs to experience  what it would be like. Filming my friend George we both captured the long and painful journey that we would normally take by foot.

We found that the journey was tricky as we both had to keep up with each other, as i remember George kept on complaining that his wrist hurt, just within the space of 10 minutes, This shows how we take our legs for granted.